Tinkering With Head Start

President Bush's determination to make Head Start into a reading
program is rapidly polarizing educators—but it
needn't.

President Bush's determination to make Head Start into a reading
program is rapidly polarizing those who should be working together to
assure that all children will enter school with a decent chance of
success—in school and in life. I believe the polarization arises
because the easiest way to imagine what a Head Start reading program
would look like (flashcards instead of toys, letter-recognition drills
instead of trips to the dentist, ditto sheets instead of conversations)
is unquestionably scary. But anyone alarmed by the idea of 3- year-olds
in such a setting should be comforted by the research that makes very
plain that if you care about kids being ready for school, that's not
how you go about it. Reading readiness, like school readiness, is more
than a mechanical set of skills. Both the original vision of Head Start
and the newest research show that the most effective ways (though
perhaps not the quickest and cheapest way) to make Head Start into a
reading program are entirely compatible with attention to children's
emotional, social, and health needs, and with their needs for nurturing
and supportive adults in their lives. In fact, the most effective
approaches to young children's reading readiness actually require such
multifaceted attention.

I have been a close observer of Head Start since the moment of its
creation in 1964, based on this clear and simple idea: The federal
government would enable local communities to provide poor and minority
children with the early experiences that would equip them to start
school on a par with their middle-class peers. No longer would they
arrive at school with their lifetime chances already stunted.

Astonishingly, that vision has withstood the test of time, and has
continued to evolve to reflect the radical changes of the last 35
years: in the nature of poverty and of family structure, in the rapid
escalation of mothers entering the workplace, in our demands that
formal education keep pace with new economic conditions, and in our
understanding of the importance of the earliest years.

Today, as at several earlier points of Head Start's evolution, a new
administration threatens one of those swings of the pendulum that could
demolish hard-won gains on one front in the hope of redeploying
resources to achieve greater triumphs on another.

It doesn't have to be that way. By applying what we have learned
about "what works," rather than focusing on ideological differences, we
can reconcile superficially opposing views. No need to argue about
whether our goal should be "school readiness" or "social competence,"
child care for working parents or family literacy. Nor whether "parent
involvement" or links to a "medical home" are better investments than
"teacher quality." These are not trade-offs in a zero-sum game, but
essential complementarities in a new century's responses to the
challenge of assuring equal opportunity at the very beginning of
life.

Three conclusions emerge from 35 years of Head Start research and
experience:

A clear focus on school readiness, even reading readiness, is
fully compatible with Head Start's goals.

We have always known that poor children are at significant risk of
failing in school, that school problems begin early, and that initial
reading failure can lead to snowballing deficits in acquiring content
knowledge. Head Start's goal has always been to act on all we know to
provide disadvantaged young children—and their families—
with the boost they need to help children succeed in school and in
life.

Now that we know in much greater detail than we did 35 years ago
about the specifics of what it takes to achieve that goal, Head Start,
and all programs for young children and families, must continue to add
to the early-childhood toolbox.

School readiness is a many-splendored thing, which requires
attention to physical, cognitive, and interpersonal development, and
to family and neighborhood surroundings.

School readiness
means immersing young children in environments that are safe,
nurturing, stimulating, responsive, knowledge-centered, and rich
in language.

This means immersing young children, including infants and toddlers, in
environments that are safe, nurturing, stimulating, responsive,
knowledge- centered, and rich in language. It means cultivating
children's natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. It means
strengthening family and community capacity to support children's
developing competence.

We now know that all aspects of development affect one another. What
goes into making children ready for school is far more than flashcards.
Their teachers must be trained and supported in offering enriched
language and literacy environments, and practice in using language for
extended discourse. Their parents' capacity must be expanded so that
they can act more effectively on their commitment to their children's
education. In families where parents are impaired in caring for their
children by depression, substance abuse, personality disorders, or
domestic violence, programs must be able to mobilize prompt and
competent help.

‘Reading readiness’ is not a narrow notion of
recognizing letters, shapes, colors, and numbers, or reciting the
days of the week.

Both research and experience demonstrate the importance of the early
years for developing trust in relationships and the desire for mastery,
and for learning to manage one's impulses, to listen, take turns, and
get along with others. "Reading readiness" is not a narrow notion of
recognizing letters, shapes, colors, and numbers, or reciting the days
of the week. Efforts to link children and families with the health
care, nutrition, and other services they need cannot be allowed to
compete with providing opportunities for parent involvement, for
children to acquire the concepts that enable them to make sense of the
world, or for encouraging children in the dramatic play that
contributes to literacy and a rich vocabulary. Curiosity, cognition,
and eagerness to learn flourish when they are shared and jointly
enjoyed.

Enhancing the nation's capacity to achieve these goals
requires systematic harvesting of both research and experience to
identify what works, and to apply that knowledge to improve outcomes
for young children in the widely varied settings in which they spend
their days.

No one now disputes the contention that Head Start and other
comprehensive early-childhood programs designed on the Head Start model
work. Nor would anyone contend that all Head Start programs, or all
Head Start strategies, are equally effective in achieving agreed-upon
goals. The challenge lies in identifying the essential elements of
effectiveness.

In the earliest days of Head Start and of the Great Society, the
growth of social programs was accompanied by demands from policymakers
for systematic data to determine the efficacy of policies and programs,
especially those serving populations without a lot of political clout.
The assumption was that the results of "scientific" research and
evaluation would ultimately be so precise as to allow social scientists
to determine which programs and policies were worthy of the investment
of public funds and citizen energies. Proven models would be described,
disseminated, and ultimately cloned.

But this approach to social change could not endure. The evaluation
results never arrived in time, and the research couldn't provide
sufficiently precise answers about what works, when, in what dosages,
and for whom, to predetermine program, policy, and investment choices.
Especially when the researchers were trying to use traditional methods
(based on randomly assigned experimental and control groups) to assess
complex, interactive, community-based programs, they couldn't solve the
problems of selection bias, attrition, small sample sizes, or the
importance of "unobservables." They couldn't solve the ethical problems
of withholding effective interventions from some, and the pesky
tendency of good programs to change as they were adapted over time and
in response to varying local circumstances.

Even more important, we belatedly learned that models crafted
centrally—whether in universities, think tanks, or
legislatures—and imposed from outside without regard to the
beliefs and values of those implementing them were unlikely to work.
Without local ownership, input, and adaptation, replications of
centrally devised solutions were typically less effective than the
original model. We learned that unless the local implementers
believe in what they are doing, they are unlikely to be
successful.

Now we are finally at the stage where we are achieving a
balance.

We may not be
able to promulgate a single best model, but we do recognize that
there is substantial generalizable wisdom about what
works.

We may not be able to promulgate a single best model, but we do
recognize that there is substantial generalizable wisdom about what
works that should inform community efforts—in the form of
performance standards, in the form of technical assistance, and in the
form of information to draw on.

Thus, the challenge is to learn all we can about everything that
works to achieve the outcomes we seek. We must get better at
understanding how the most effective programs work, and how their
practices and strategies are best combined and continually improved. We
must get better at identifying the attributes of effectiveness and high
quality wherever they occur, and the elements of the infrastructure
that sustain and support these attributes of effectiveness. We must
zero in on reconciling local flexibility and community embeddedness
with accountability for a few, carefully selected, face-valid
measures.

Longtime supporters of giving children a head start (and a safe and
healthy start) can join with those who seek to reduce the achievement
gap between the haves and the have-nots in the nation. And all of us
can welcome the new administration's determination to do whatever it
takes to assure that every local community will have the tools and
resources available so that all the nation's children, regardless of
race, income, or ethnic background, will arrive at school with a
realistic chance of achieving the American dream.

Lisbeth B. Schorr is the director of the Project on Effective
Interventions at Harvard University. This article is adapted from her
foreword to the forthcoming volume The Head Start Debates (Friendly and
Otherwise), edited by Edward Zigler and Sally J. Styfco.

Read the National Head Start Association's take on the president's
proposal in its March 2, 2001, legislative
update.

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